


Sweet Baby of Mine

by gray_autumn_sky



Series: Happiness Can't Be Arranged [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, HCBA Flash-Forward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 20:50:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14626782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: In honor of Mother's Day, a little flash-forward in my HCBA verse. Set about a year and a half to two years after the main story's end.





	Sweet Baby of Mine

Regina smiles hazily down at their newborn son as she rubs her thumbs gently over the silky-soft bottoms of his little feet–and despite her exhaustion, she can’t quite bring herself to look away from him, to bring herself to close her eyes and allow herself a little sleep.

The day had passed in a blur–though, as she lived through it, it hadn’t seemed that way at all.

Nothing that day had gone as planned–starting with Dr. Hopper’s assurance only three days before, at her last examination, that there’d be at least another two weeks before the baby made its arrival, and ending with the rainstorm that prevented him from traveling from town to the hunting lodge to help her through the delivery. None of it had bothered her much–she’d done it all before and the second go-around had been much easier than the first in almost every way–but there’d been no denying the fear in Robin’s eyes, and worse, the fear in Roland’s.

All throughout her pregnancy, it hadn’t been lost on her that the last time Robin was expecting a baby, he’d been preparing to lose a wife. The situations were completely different, and on most days, he was able to push aside the worry, but it was always there. It’d creep up in quiet moments. She’d catch him staring at her from across the room or she’d wake up in the middle of the night with him holding her just a bit too tightly, and if she had so much as a bit of indigestion, he was sending Winston for Dr. Hopper.

Roland was cuddlier than he usually was–which she had no complaints about–and always wanted to be near her. They’d fallen into a habit of taking walks together, and he’d hold tightly onto her hand as they walked along the edge of the woods. He went slower than necessary when they returned to the lodge, he’d split a cookie with her and make sure that she sat down. Every morning, he’d peek into her room and blow her a kiss and every night he made it a point to tell her that he loved her. It was sweet the way he cared–the way he wanted to take care of her in whatever way that he could–but, in a lot of ways, it was bittersweet. He knew that Marian died the night that he was born, and sometimes, it seemed, that he was trying to soak up every moment that he could with her, just in case the same thing happened when she gave birth to this new baby.

Henry shared in her excitement, though. He helped her to knit a little blanket, and he teased her about its uneven edges. They picked out a rocking chair together, and he helped her cut out and sew the edges of little flannels that the baby would wear as diapers. He kept a running list of possible baby names in one a leather-bound booklets and put little marks next to his favorites. He’d written down anything that either she or Robin floated out as a possibility and crossed out anything either of them had nixed–which, unfortunately meant his book was filled with the names suited for a little girl because Robin had refused to even consider the possibility they’d be having a son…

“Mm, I fell asleep,” Robin voice says, groggy and raspy, as he pulls her back into the present moment.

“You did,” she confirms, momentarily glancing at him and watching as he blinks and stretches out his arms. “You’ve been out for almost an hour,” she adds before looking back to the baby in her lap. “But, I suppose that’s expected, given that its nearly time for the sun to come up.”

Clearing his throat, Robin pulls himself up a bit and rolls onto his side, propping his head up in his hand. He runs two fingers up and down her arm and drops a kiss to her shoulder. “That’s… actually incredibly embarrassing,” he tells her as makes a poor attempt to stifle a yawn. “You had a baby today and I’m the one who needs rest?”

She giggles softly. “You helped.”

His eyes widen. “I… sat next to you and watched.”

“You held my hand.”

“And watched Mrs. Potter and Mrs. Beakley do anything that was helpful to you.”

“The back rubs you gave me were nice.”

“It was the least I could do,” he tells her, blinking a couple of time as he sighs, then drops another kiss to her shoulder. “How are you feeling?”

“Sore,” she admits. “And tired.”

“You should–”

“No,” she cuts in, grinning down at their son as he curls his little toes and scrunches up his face. “I think I’m beyond the point of sleeping. I just… want to stare at him.” Momentarily, she looks to Robin and a little laugh escapes her. “Besides, my mother and your father are going to be here in a couple of hours, and… I’d really like to sleep through that, if I can.”

“You absolutely can,” Robin tells her, laughing softly as his arm slips around her shoulders. “And, if you’re sleeping, that means I can tend to this little guy and leave them to their own defenses.”

Looking back to her infant son, she nods. “Just to be clear,” she says, rubbing her hands over the soft cotton blanket that covers the baby. “I don’t want a wet nurse. I don’t want him to be Mal’s responsibility, and I don’t want to hire someone else to care for him. I want to do it.”

“I know,” he murmurs. “That’s what we decided.”

She nods. “I just… when they get here, I know they both have… ways of…”

“He’s our son, Regina. We choose how he’s raised.”

“Right,” she says, nodding as her hands slip over his shoulders and back down his tiny arms. “He’s our son.” She holds her breath as her eyes pinch closed, and she thinks about all of the times he said that he pictured them having a daughter, how convinced he was that the child she carried was a girl, and how much he seemed to be looking forward to tea parties and china dolls, to sweet little party dresses and ribbons tied around braids.

“You’re… alright with that, aren’t you? You’re not… disappointed?”

“What?”

“I know you wanted this one to be a girl.”

“Oh,” he breathes out. “No. No, I’m not disappointed.” His fingers kneed at her shoulder, and she can practically feel the smile stretching across his lips and shining through his eyes. “How could I be disappointed when you’ve given me something so perfect?”

A smile edges into her lips. “He is quite perfect,” she says, rubbing her palms over her baby boy’s legs and wrapping her fingers loosely around his feet. “And quite without a name.”

“Ah, right.”

“You wouldn’t hear anything suitable for a boy.”

“I’ve always been of the thought that you shouldn’t name someone until you’ve met them.”

“I can understand that… to a degree,” she murmurs. “But we’ve met him now.”

“So, now we should name him.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding as she focuses her attention on their son and thinks back to all the names she’d considered–all of which don’t quite fit the child in her lap. “I had a couple of favorite names for this little guy, but… I don’t know now.”

“What were they?”

She sighs. “George, for one.”

“No,” he agrees. “He’s not a George.”

“Robert was another I thought about, then… decided I didn’t like that for him,” she says, looking briefly in his direction. “Too many R’s.”

Robin nods. “I hate when people do that–name everyone something similar.” He shrugs. “Like they’re little interchangeable pieces.”

“Mm,” she nods. “Another was Alexander, which I like the most so far.”

“Maybe” he says again. “I like Alexander, but it’s–”

“Off.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe Alexander could be a middle name.”  
  


“Perhaps,” he murmurs, drawing in a breath as he presses a kiss to her hair. “What about Oliver?”

A grin edges onto her lips as she looks from Robin back to their son–she hadn’t thought of that, but she thinks she likes it. “Oliver,” she says, testing out the name as she continues to gently knead the baby’s feet. “Oliver Alexander.”

“We could call him Ollie,” Robin says in a nearly sing-sing voice as he reaches out and runs two fingers over their son’s little hand. “It’s got kind of a ring to it, doesn’t it? Oliver Alexander Locksley.”

“It does,” she agrees. “And Ollie is so sweet.” The baby stirs in her lap, his little tongue pushing out from between his lips as his nose scrunches up and his cheeks turn red. His little hands ball into fists as he takes in a in few rushed breaths–and then, instead of a cry, he yawns and then relaxes, continuing to sleep. “I… think that means he’s considered it and decided that he likes it.”

“As he should,” Robin says, laughing softly. “It’s a good name.”

“It is,” she agrees, her eyes suddenly heavy as her head falls to his shoulder. “We have son… a son named Oliver.”

“And he’s perfect.”

She draws in a breath and momentarily lets her eyes close–and then, a moment later, she flinches. Her head jerks up from Robin’s shoulder and her eyes fly open as she slowly releases her breath and blinks down at Oliver.

“You should sleep.”

“I–”

“Need to sleep,” Robin cuts in, slowly leaning forward as he pushes his hand underneath their son, lifting him up from her lap. “I’ve got him,” he murmurs as he settles back against the pillow and lays Oliver against his chest.

She grins groggily as she watches Robin rub circles against Oliver’s little back, and she watches the way he presses a soft kiss to the top of his head as breathes him in. Oliver kicks his little feet through the opening of the blanket around him and practically snuggles against his father–and truly, she could watch the two of them forever.

But Robin adjusts himself again, and this time he edges closer to her, moving carefully as he drapes his arm around her shoulders. “You need to sleep, love,” he tells her, pressing a kiss to her hair just before her head falls to his shoulder. “We’ll be right here when you wake up.”

She blinks and smiles at the way Oliver’s cheek is scrunched up, pressed into Robin’s chest and the way his little fingers clutch at Robin’s shirt. “For a just a little while,” Regina murmurs, blinking again, and this time finding it too difficult to open her eyes. “Wake me if–”

“He will,” Robin tells her as her own voice fades. “We both know that he will.”

Nodding against his chest, she smiles–and the last thing she thinks of before finally drifting off to sleep is how full her heart feels.


End file.
